Blogging as Performance Art

If you waste as much time in the blogsphere as I do, you start to run across some peculiar things. One of the minor trends I've noticed recently is what I can best describe as the blog as performance art. Essentially, the author chooses a persona in which to write a blog (which may be clearly imaginary, or perhaps even real but offbeat) and then he or she runs with it and writes a blog (perhaps mainly humorous, perhaps nearly straight) in that persona.

Most famously, you have Musum Pontificalis, the private musings of Benedict XVI.

Continuing along clerical lines, there's Blogging Ex Cathedra by bishop Leo Clayton of the diocese of Norfolk, VA. (Hint, there is no diocese of Norfolk.) Whoever is maintaining the bishop's site has a much drier sense of humor than the pontif, and seems to be sticking moderately close to reality.

There there's the Delia Gallagher fan club, devoted to obsession with CNN "Vaticanologist" Delia Gallagher. That one's just kind of, odd.

And speaking of odd, there's the Beach Bunny Vaticanisti, supposedly the product of a blonde, leggy, San Dieogo model with an interest in Vatican politics. Why do I have the odd feeling it's actually written by a man...? But hey, I've been wrong before.